In recent years there has been a huge proliferation of the number of applications (also referred to as “apps”) developed for devices such as smartphones, tablets and other wireless mobile computing devices. For example, there are literally hundreds of thousands of mobile applications available in the marketplace for use on hundreds of millions of iOS (iPad, iPhone, etc.) and Android mobile platform devices. On a typical day it is estimated that upwards of 1,000 new apps are created for mobile computing devices. Testing of these mobile applications across different platforms, hardware modules, and software/firmware versions is a huge challenge. By way of example, for a developer to test all the permutations of a mobile application on all the possible variations of hardware (e.g., phone or tablet) modules, for all operating system (OS) versions, and across all vendor firmware versions, such a task could easily result in a thousand or more test case combinations. Thus, the explosion of mobile computing devices and apps for use on these devices is creating a strain on testing organizations.
Adding to the difficulty of functional testing of mobile applications is the evolving voice, touch, movement and gesture-based (e.g., swipe, pinch, zoom, flip, etc.) user interfaces that today's mobile applications rely upon. A plethora of challenges exist, such as how to precisely test different gestures, geolocation, motion, etc., as well as how to realistically conduct load, functional and performance tests on a variety of different mobile devices. For mobile developers, reconciling touch and gesture-based input with design and functionality goals in mobile applications has become a daunting problem. Testing gestures in a mobile application is extremely time consuming and difficult. Companies typically employ a team of engineers to manually test all of the features and functionality of the application on a given platform, or set of in-house, physical devices. Due in part to the slow, arduous, labor-intensive, and error-prone process required for manual functional testing of mobile applications, it is estimated that more than half of all mobile and Web apps are publically released without ever being functionally or scale tested.
Past attempts at functional test automation of mobile applications have typically relied upon the practice of “jailbreaking” the mobile device. Jailbreaking is the unauthorized process of breaking through the locked environment and removing the limitations imposed by manufacturers such as Apple@ on devices (i.e., iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) which run the iOS operating system through use of custom kernels. Jailbreaking allows users to gain root access to the operating system, allowing iOS users to download additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. Jailbreaking is necessary if the user intends to run software not authorized by Apple. Additionally, many prior art testing techniques require that the mobile device be tethered. Tethering refers to the practice wherein the jail broken mobile device is connected via a wire or cable to a hardware component (i.e., a computer) capable of utilizing optical recognition algorithms to read pixels and thus identify the objects (e.g., icons, text, buttons, elements, etc.) displayed on the screen. Optical recognition techniques for functional testing of mobile applications, however, are known to be fragile and brittle. For instance, optical recognition techniques are prone to producing false negative test results following minor software revisions, such as from a change in the position or location of button on the screen.
Some companies offer online tools and consoles to developers that allow them to run applications and tests on an emulator system or platform that simulates an actual mobile device. For instance, Google offers an online simulator product called Android Studio for Android application developers. The problem with these tools is that the user is essentially running a fake device on their laptop computer that lacks the complete functionality of an actual physical device.